@VisualVersa (Alina)

Try new things as often as possible, develop new skills and knowledge; the more you expose yourself to things, the more ideas you will get. Experimenting does not have to be taking huge risks, we can try experimenting by adding a new “let’s think outside the box exercise at the beginning of a meeting”, or by skipping the presentation method and moving to a collaborative platform for one team session. Changing things up is not easy, and sometimes the automatic answer of “that is not going to work” does not allow us to try things that might bring amazing results. It is important to work with people who have different perspectives, different expertise, and different approaches from yours.

We wanted to share with you some ideas about how you can use visual tools to improve productivity and achieve your plans. If you have not watched our video about divergent thinking, that is a good way to get started, the video will give you some ideas of exercises to practice. Concrete simple steps you can start using in your day to day are creating visuals for your calendar/planner, using icons in your meetings’ agendas or using visuals during brainstorming sessions. Do Visuals brainstorming sessions– Engage team members by requiring them to doodle or use images from any web searcher to describe their ideas.

And to be a le to do that, @visualversa we created a FREE visual template for you to evaluate different parts of your live, and make a plan to work on those you want to improve by turning your dreams into realities during 2021. A really important part of this exercise is to use some icons through the process, we have added a page of icon ideas to this guide, to help you get started with this practice. And just because we are all about visuals, here is another idea to help you visually organize your plans…Use colorsUse different colors for personal and family vs. business activities; or to organize priorities. We use Yellow, Orange and Red to make our priorities clear in our online office calendar 🙂A good way to structure your ideas is to think about the main goal vs. the different small goals/steps towards your goal.

Some professional recorders and facilitators were already used to the online world, however for me this transition required a lot of research, adapting and learning about new tools and skills. I not only had to look into softwares to take visual notes, but also ways to engage participants online and get them out of what was becoming a routine of cameras off, multitasking and low participation meetings. Some of these tools are easier to use with a tablet, however it is also possible to use them with your mouse (either way is a matter of practice and getting comfortable with the tools you have on hand).Disclosure! As with anything new, if you are planning on using any of these tools with a group for the first time, it is important to set some time apart to do a fast intro/tutorial about how to use the tool and then give people about 5 minutes to let them play with it so they can ask questions before they get started on task.